Election 2004 brought it to a head.

Instead of hearing about each candidates ideas and positions on issues, we received a landslide of negative campaign material accusing George W. Bush of everything short of gangbanging baby seals and John Kerry of everything but leading Vietnamese troops into combat.

Granted, negativity is nothing new to elections, and every historian has their own "favorite" negative campaign smear, but rarely have we seen a nation so focused on negativity, and, I believe, it has gotten out of control. Negativity only breeds negativity, and if we have a nation of individuals convinced that George W. Bush engineered the 9/11 attacks and stole two elections (odd, since, as pointed out during the JFK administration, it would be folly to "steal" a landslide), then we have a nation of cynics with no positive contributions towards what must be done to combat the very REAL problems that plague our great nation.

My own party is not above this, in fact, I have been a little red faced from some of the comments uttered by otherwise qualified Libertarians in various races. It is, if anything, the reason that our party remains marginalized and that we've failed to rightly gain graound as America's third party by advancing the common sense solutions that abound in the Libertarian Party platform. It is also my primary objective as a Libertarian in trying to reform what I can reform among our own party.

The latest entry into all of this was mentioned in another blog: the snub of Jimmy Carter in heading up tsunami relief. While I saw it, and questioned Carter's exclusion, it didn't enter my mind that Bush was "snubbing" Carter, but rather reaching out to Clinton, who has requested a larger role in the international community and his father, whom he rightly admires. In fact, given Habitat for Humanity's international posture, I found it quite possible that Carter could be too BUSY to head up the US efforts. But it is quite possible I have mistaken (to naysayers: why don't we wait till we get CARTER'S take on this before drawing conclusions).

But the mention of the Carter snub was a symptom of a larger problem, and a problem that threatens to destroy us as a nation. We have become a nation of whiners and malcontents, often without a clue as to the very nature of and solutions to the various problems we encounter. We have met the enemy, as Walt Kelley once famously said, and he is us.

Let's try to break the climate of negativity with a more positive outlook.

Respectfully submitted,

Gideon MacLeish